The current Desolator's guns are basically TT accurate. You got lance broadsides, and you got dorsal weapon batteries, and you got a torpedo launcher with equivalent power to the Retribution's. Against single targets, the Desolator was always comparable to the Acheron (since the Acheron has more dorsal weapons but weaker broadsides, it falls behind when both broadsides have targets to shoot).

Remember, nowhere in the tabletop rules does it say 'macro cannons' on any of the stat blocks. It's weapon batteries, which explicitly include missile weapons. There's a reason missile weapons accept Armada's macro upgrades, they all represent the same block of TT rules.

The actual problems are the following:

-Armada's Desolator is too slow.

-It's too expensive (it was significantly cheaper than other BBs, here it's just slightly below the Retri in cost).

-Having 60cm/12k range weapon batteries is much less valuable in Armada than it is in tabletop, no matter whether they're modeled as missiles or macros.

-No range advantage compared to the Acheron, in part because weapon batteries don't matter at 12k/60cm, in part because in TT, some of the Acheron's lances were shorter ranged.

So the Desolator is missing multiple factors that made it desirable in tabletop.

That's cool, we don't have to slavishly stick to GW's rules, but you need to give the Desolator something better than 'the only Chaos lineship with torpedoes'. More guns per broadside, more dorsals, more speed, just something!

Psykmoe wrote:The current Desolator's guns are basically TT accurate. You got lance broadsides, and you got dorsal weapon batteries, and you got a torpedo launcher with equivalent power to the Retribution's. Against single targets, the Desolator was always comparable to the Acheron (since the Acheron has more dorsal weapons, it falls behind when both broadsides have targets to shoot).

Remember, nowhere in the tabletop rules does it say 'macro cannons' on any of the stat blocks. It's weapon batteries, which explicitly include missile weapons. There's a reason missile weapons accept Armada's macro upgrades, they all represent the same block of TT rules.

The actual problems are the following:

-Armada's Desolator is too slow.

-It's too expensive (it was significantly cheaper than other BBs, here it's just slightly below the Retri in cost).

-Having 60cm/12k range weapon batteries is much less valuable in Armada than it is in tabletop, no matter whether they're modeled as missiles or macros.

-No range advantage compared to the Acheron, in part because weapon batteries don't matter at 12k/60cm, in part because in TT, some of the Acheron's lances were shorter ranged.

So the Desolator is missing multiple factors that made it desirable in tabletop.

That's cool, we don't have to slavishly stick to GW's rules, but you need to give the Desolator something better than 'the only Chaos lineship with torpedoes'. More guns per broadside, more dorsals, more speed, just something!

This right here. He knows his tabletop!

Desolator in TT was a battleship that lacked firepower, but was fast and cheap. Emperor was like 365 points, Despoiler was close to 400, and the Desolator was only 300! Cheapest battleship in the game. Sure it didn't hit any harder than a heavy cruiser, but it was a battleship hull (12 hp, 4 shields) that moved as fast as a chaos cruiser!

The Armada battleship is potentially (with engine upgrades) slower than Imperial battleships! When on tabletop it was 66% faster than them!

Upon reading further I would recommend a mobility buff (from 5 degree turn to 10 degree, BCs have a 15 degree turn) and a speed buff from 150 to 188. Then maybe also include full batteries of dorsal Macro Cannons.

Do the above, or dramatically lower its price (to something like 190-200 pts, which would be a bargain for an Archeon with this much HP, but balance by lack of speed and mobility).

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CALiGeR190 wrote:Upon reading further I would recommend a mobility buff (from 5 degree turn to 10 degree, BCs have a 15 degree turn) and a speed buff from 150 to 188. Then maybe also include full batteries of dorsal Macro Cannons.

Do the above, or dramatically lower its price (to something like 190-200 pts, which would be a bargain for an Archeon with this much HP, but balance by lack of speed and mobility).